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A month ago, I met with Benjamin P. Hardy–the 28-year-old entrepreneur who is one of the most read and followed writers on Medium—to talk about how he amassed 89,000 followers and 85,000 subscribers (25,000 in a period of 30 days).

He had an ambitious goal—creation of an online course to be delivered by email, on the compelling topic he’s come to be known for: Morning routines. On another occasion we could talk about why his topic is so compelling. But since his most popular article received 3-4 million views and dozens of re-postings, it’s the theme that’s been present through his 115 articles over the past 17 months, in his two eBooks, and is the focus of the morning checklist he recently made available as an entry point to followers and fans.

Benjamin Hardy is one of the top 3 most read writers on Medium.com.

But back to the course. Hardy’s initial plan was to offer a 12-week course as four weeks of continual content followed by eight weeks of accountability support for a one-time price of $187. His goal—which he was willing to state for me and for readers—was 500 participants, to produce a gross revenue of about $93,000.

The cost of goods would be minimal—primarily the monthly subscription to ClickFunnels for $99 for landing pages, to host the lesson materials and to handle the email delivery and follow up. There is also a simple shopping cart to receive the money, and a small amount of time each week to develop the course.

How did it come out? I’ll jump straight to the punch line--Hardy achieved his 500 entrants (barely), producing revenue of just under $90,000. While he (and I) would love to say it was a slam-dunk; it was not. There were numerous learning experiences, miscues and re-do’s that occurred in the seven days of the launch that commenced on January 2 during which Hardy learned his biggest marketing lessons to date. Here’s what happened:

Only an Entrepreneur… Reid Hoffman, author, partner at Graylock and cofounder of LinkedIn has famously stated, “An entrepreneur is willing to jump off a cliff and assemble an airplane on the way down.” For Handy, that expression drew new meaning from January 2-9. He thought he was well prepared. He’d even spent two days in Orlando with his favorite online marketing guru, planning, preparing and writing each of the emails that would comprise his campaign in advance.

Change #1: 12 Weeks? Nope. Let’s go 52. As he thought about the plan to deliver near-daily material for four weeks, Benjamin realized that even with video content of less than 10 minutes per session, “some of his followers would still get overwhelmed.” So he changed the plan on the fly. The course would run all 52 weeks of 2017, but with just one lesson video per week (that would be available to participants during all of the week and remain from then on). The remainder of each week would be accountability and follow up, allowing participants to reach more-certain success by progressing in a single, smaller step at a time, with sufficient practice of each step before moving on.

Change #2: “My sales page sucked.”Hardy was so confident of his preparation, in his kick-off email he noted that his family would be away for an 18-hour road trip, and his ability to respond to e-mail questions would be 1-2 days delayed. There was no “hype-y” pitch and no blaring headline. The message was a simple notification to those who’d asked to be alerted that “now it’s live, and if you’d like to participate, come and get it.”

The result was…..not much. Only 50 sales appeared in the first 1-2 days (admittedly, I was one of them, as was one of Benjamin’s aunts). What went wrong? Admitting to himself he’s a “content guy” but not the “world’s greatest online marketer,” he was stumped. Yet he know that whatever he needed to learn in this, he would not have learned effectively had he not gone forward and embarked on the launch.

Several days later he found himself on the phone with an even younger new thought leader, Zdravko Cvijetic, of Serbia, currently at work on a bachelor’s degree at the University of Belgrade. Zdravko (who helpfully refers to himself as “Z”) had also recently begun writing on Medium.com. Unbeknownst to Hardy, Z had been following his tracks, mirroring his strategies, and in the last week of the year, on Dec. 26, produced an article that became an immediate hit, producing nearly 5 million views and more than 80,000 subscribers. Here it is.

“He had I have been talking,” Hardy said to me in December. “Maybe we’ll race to 1 million subscribers. It’s funny when someone beats me at my own game.”

Z asked how the launch was going. Said Hardy, “Not well.”

“Would you like to show your page to my roommate?” Z asked. “He’s really good at marketing.”

So Hardy sent the link to his sales page to both. “Wow, this is terrible,” they offered.

The sales page opened with a countdown timer of the 7-day enrollment. Next up after the counter: The shopping cart link. Whoa! Apparently the immediate close was jolting the majority of customers who were still wondering, “Now what will I get for this? Do I really want it?”

A humbling lesson: You should sell in the same way you write. As the three considered the poorly performing page, the situation was suddenly obvious. In Hardy’s articles, people get increasingly emotionally committed as they read, and by the end they’re sufficiently ready to click the link and say “Yes, send me that checklist" (or eBook, or sign me up to be notified when you open that course). But the sales page did the opposite, dropping people directly into the close for the sale.

A little restructuring made a big difference. First, the counter remained (for urgency). Next came “As featured in” and the list and links to the press Hardy’s received (credibility.) Then a 1.5 minute video of Hardy. He took the first 30 seconds to re-establish the pain point—the majority of people are distracted, hate their jobs, and wake up to check their email instead of being pulled from their beds by a vision. Then he created the solution in his final minute—this online course will pull you out of survival mode.

He pointed out that most products and courses are “too much.” Too much time, too overwhelming, and by the time you get to the finish line, you forget what you’ve learned. But this course was set up to be pain free and to keep people accountable through simple spreadsheets and weekly lessons that require no more than 10 minutes at a time. Then, following the video, he included a couple of high credibility blurbs from well-known authors and instructors “saying how awesome I am.” This was followed by brief bullets explaining what’s in the course, what you’ll achieve, the answers to questions they might have, and the reassurance that any participant who isn’t fully satisfied can request a 100% refund. Finally, he included the cart.

Now we’re talking. The final two emails to registrants were important as well. Thirty-six hours out, the message was blunt and straightforward (but the sales page, of course, had entirely changed). On the final day, he sent two messages. The first was a simple reminder that this was the final day to enroll until 2018. The final was a more personal message:

“I know there are lots of people on the fence about this, a lot of procrastinators. I know this course isn’t for everyone, and that’s okay. We’re all on our own journey. If this course is right for you, you should be feeling it and you should probably act (and included a link to one of his articles about making decisions). But, as I learned myself during this launch, you have to act before you’re ready. When you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen. But you have to act. If you’re forced to make the outcome happen, you will.”

By now Hardy was seeing good traffic appear. He boosted it further by routing the last several articles he’d published to temporarily send people directly to the sales page instead of inviting them to subscribe. “So my subscriber rate dropped during the final two days, but the result was 10,000 people, from all sources, going to the sales page on my site.” The outcomes—at 36 hours left, sales jumped from $5,000 to $25,000. Then, in the final few hours of the week, they rose from $50,000 to $90,000. It wasn’t easy and the process wasn’t obvious, but by the skin of his teeth, he hit 500 registrants and had come within $3,000 of reaching the internal revenue goal. True to his authenticity model, when the selling period was done it was done, and he avoided the “But wait! I’m extending the deadline for 48 more hours” ploy.

No time to exult. Hardy is monetizing his thought leadership work in great form and according to goal, yet he is taking little time to exult. Next on his agenda is a Facebook group for subscribers that will allow his most ardent fans to participate more fully, and by doing so, to support and encourage others as well. “I’m going to turn my biggest fans into my biggest advocates, too.” And to carry the momentum further, he’ll share the best results of the course with his growing audience base. So stay tuned.

Information about Cheryl Snapp Conner's Content University program to help businesses and executives tell their stories better is available here.